When? Why? How?

The Anglo-Saxons first settled in Britain around the fifth and sixth century. The settlement of the Anglo-Saxons made the basis for the language we refer to today as Old English. They spoke a variety of Germanic dialects, closely related to each other, although with some significant differences. This lead to the many varieties of English in texts from the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries. The most common words from that time, that we still have today, are words related to farming and such, like sheep, shepherd, field etc.

In the ninth century, the Scandinavians started making their appearance in Britain. They were many, and dragged with them Norse words such as gate, here referring to a street, take and they. It was easy for the English to pick up these words, as Old English and Norse were both Germanic languages, and therefore similar to a certain degree. Today, we have examples of the Scandinavians taking back some of the words the English once gained from them, like bag.

In 1066, after William the Conqueror´s victory at the battle of Hastings. After this, the English of that time underwent some serious changes, concerning the inflectional system of Old English, which completely broke down, and a new period in the history of English began, Middle English. In this time, the English also got a great number of loanwords from French and Latin, increasing the size of their language, due to the invasion in 1066.

In the 16^th century, the printing press became quite popular. This finally concluded the standardization process of English that had been going on since the medieval and early modern times. There was also a considerable change in the pronunciation of English over time, leading to, what is today known as the Great Vowel Shift. With this, Modern English introduced itself as a new chapter in the story of the English language.

With the British´ colonization and explorations around the world, the English language began its road to become a world language. Today it has achieved that goal, being a language of administration and diplomacy used around the whole world. Because of being a world language, English is still adopting new words, and evolving ever further.